


Thanksgiving With The West Wing Avengers

by Grania



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The West Wing
Genre: AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-21
Updated: 2015-11-21
Packaged: 2018-05-02 16:36:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5255549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grania/pseuds/Grania
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was an idea...to bring together a group of more or less remarkable people. See if they could become something more. See if they could work together when we needed them to, to do the tasks Senior Staff just doesn't have the time for. </p>
<p>Or: Tony loses the turkey that should receive a presidential pardon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thanksgiving With The West Wing Avengers

Summer had been long this year, and fall came late and soft, thus Thanksgiving was as colorful and autumnal as Steve could only wish.   
It had always been his secret conviction that Thanksgiving should be in early October, like the Canadians’, not when winter was knocking at the door, and even though he knew that sentiment was not high treason, it did feel a little bit like it.

“Steve!”, Peggy shouted behind his back, and with a jolt Steve realised that he had stopped on his way to the Capitol, and was looking out over the park, and the river, and the golden trees.  
He was not in a hurry to catch up with her. Peggy was always on edge, even though today’s meeting with the minority Whip was redundant anyway.

“Isn’t it wonderful?”, he asked when he was standing next to her again, and threw one last, longing look over his shoulder.

For a moment Peggy looked at him as if he had announced to run for the Republicans in the next race, then she finally glanced at the view in her back, and saw what he meant.  
“Huh. Yeah, actually. Wonderful.”

It was tragic how she never looked up from her work. Sometimes Steve just wanted to sweep her off to a free day somewhere far away from D.C., but he knew well enough that, should he ever try, they would never find his body.

“Do you have any plans for Thanksgiving?”, he asked as they walked into the Capitol. They turned left to the fast lane through the metal detectors, the ones for people with important badges.   
The tourists eyed them with awe. 

“Oh, tons”, she answered. “Finish the report on the new sales tax law, read and comment the report about the distribution of funds in public transport, come up with an idea how to convince the President not to fire the Secretary of the Navy, come up with an idea how to stop Jane from going postal on the governor of Alaska...I actually already have a plan for that last one. It involves rope and a lot of duct tape...though I haven’t decided yet who should get it. Oh, and I have to do laundry.”

They stepped out of the elevator, and made their way to the conference room.

“Are you wearing your bathing suit as underwear again?”, he asked, and tried to hide his grin.

She huffed, and sped up. “No! Shut up!”

He hurried to keep up with her. “And when are you going to eat turkey?”

He opened the door for her, and let her pass. She rolled her eyes at him as she passed him.  
“When the President cleans his desk for the next guy to take over.”

 

Steve always wondered what orders the assistants of the sharks in the Capitol got before they walked into a meeting. The minutes of these could usually be summarised in two sentences:  
“It was boring. The participants did not agree.”  
But these busybodies always typed so furiously on their computers that Steve felt pressured to do the same, to look just as occupied and concentrated, even though there was barely anything noteworthy happening.   
Maybe from their point of view it was Steve who scared them to look bad. Maybe they always wondered afterwards what Peggy told him to look out for, and felt that he made them look lazy.  
One of these days they should just stop typing, he thought. Life would be so much easier.

Peggy was one flippant eyeroll from Senator Hammer away from slamming her fist on the table when a mail came in.  
At first Steve thought it was one of press secretaries' assistant’s usual jokes when he read the subject line, with the kind of picture inside that was definitely not allowed in a government mail.  
Then he remembered that he knew someone named Mercy, and that the title “Have you seen this Mercy?” made terrible, terrible sense.   
With growing dread he opened the mail. It was sent to all assistants of the senior staff, as well as Natasha and Coulson.

“Good news first: Grace is safe in Pepper’s office (don’t tell her! It’s a surprise.). Unfortunately someone seems to have lost her sister. So if you see a big ass and flabby chin somewhere, please call me stat. Tony”

Steve sighed deeply and quietly. Only Tony could lose a turkey.  
He checked his watch, and saw that it was only a few hours to the ceremony. He did not write an answer.   
In fact he ignored the ensuing discussion between Tony and the other junior staffers, because contrary to other people he preferred to do his work properly, not between status updates.   
He went back to pretend-typing, and tried to read how long the meeting still might go from the depth of Peggy’s frown.   
And anyway, what was the worst that could happen to a fattened turkey in the heart of this country’s bureaucracy?

 

He really should have known better.

“Again?”, Peggy exclaimed when they were stopped from entering the White House after the meeting. 

The burly Secret Service agent frowned down from his six-foot-eight. “There was an incident”, he explained. “You can go in when we have cleared the situation.”

“Wonderful”, Peggy sighed, and already her phone was stuck to her ear. “Steve, get the minutes to Betty. But leave out what I said about the President’s hairline and Pepper’s heels. And find out what happened! I’ll be back in a few...yes, hello, Margaret Carter. Listen, something just got off my schedule, and I could come over right now, if..” 

Her chattering grew fainter as she hurried away to another place, another field where she was needed. Steve looked at her for a moment longer, then turned back to Jack with an apologetic grin.  
“Do I want her to know?”

Rollins shrugged. “Depends. Maybe in a year, when you can laugh about it.”

Steve’s mood sank. It could not be a false alarm then, those were only annoying, never funny, and he knew Rollins’ humor, typical Secret Service humor; rather tasteless, that is.  
“What…?”, he tried, but Rollins was so giddy to tell him that he could not finish the question, and immediately had him at his ear.

“Apparently the assistant-bitch that belongs to that guy in Counsel got away, and Brock accidentally shot it out back.” Rollins stepped back with the kind of laughter that expected others to join in. 

Steve tried to turn his grin back on but failed miserably.   
Rumlow never did anything accidentally. He was the best man of the Secret Service. Best meaning in terms of capability, not humanity.  
“But how did Lucy get out to the garden?”, he asked, and tried to sound as light-hearted as possible, again failing.

Rollins shrugged. “Don’t care. All I know is that Brock fired a shot at an intruder, and it turned out to be an animal. Now it’s the usual hassle.” He shook his head, and did not see how Steve paled.  
“I hate it. Every fucking bullet gets vetted as if it should become the next Chief Justice. Do you know how much paperwork I had to hand in after that lunatic squeezed through the…”

Steve did not hear the end, because he ran off as fast as he could.  
It was not an assistance dog that got shot, that he was sure.  
He needed to reach Tony, and he needed to find a way to the West Wing, both things immediately.  
He could not reach Tony, but the Chief of Staff’s assistant picked up after the first ring, just when Steve had convinced the agent at the door to the laundry in the East Wing to let him in.

“Please don’t tell me they killed Mercy!”, he panted. His lungs hurt, and he felt his throat close up. He slowed down, and tried to open his bag with his left hand and his right elbow.

“They didn’t kill Mercy”, Bruce answered.

Steve stopped. He was in the kitchen, and a few cooks at the far end of the room eyed him over the stoves.  
“What?”

“They didn’t kill Mercy”, Bruce repeated. “They shot her, but she’s still kicking.”

Steve finally found his inhaler in his bag, and took two deep huffs, then continued his race. “You want to tell me that Rumlow failed to kill an obese turkey that was trained to stay calm around people?”

Bruce laughed. “Now that you mention it...Hey, how many times do you think we can talk about that near him before he explodes?”

“I’m looking forward to finding this out”, Steve answered, “But before that let’s make sure Mercy lives long enough to see her own pardoning. Where is she? And where’s Tony for that matter?”

“They’re both in Pepper’s office. Senior staff is all locked out, and there’s just us. Where are you?”

“East Wing. Give me three minutes.”

 

In the end it was two minutes, and three huffs from his inhaler to bring back his voice.   
Bruce and Clint were tending to Mercy, who sat on top of Pepper’s desk, and looked surprisingly calm for the victim of a shooting. She clucked and squirmed, though, as soon as someone tried to touch her right wing, and there were drops of blood on the towel that was spread over the desk.   
Thor and Natasha sat on the couch, with Grace stuck between them. She did not bat an eye when Steve stormed in, and even though that would have made her a viable replacement for Mercy he had to agree with Thor’s assessment from earlier this morning: Her chin flap was much uglier than Mercy’s.

Really, it was not much of a choice who should be pardoned.

Tony was pacing up and down the wall behind Pepper’s desk, trying to reach someone over the phone.

“How could you lose her?”, Steve hissed, and closed the door fast.

Bruce had not been entirely right. Senior staff might have been locked out, but there were still plenty of people filling the halls of the West Wing. They seemed nervous, but not in the know about what happened.

Tony ignored him, so he tried again: “How did you get Mercy in here? And what are you doing?” 

He rolled his eyes. “Through the window in Betty’s office. And I’m trying to convince the clots at Secret Service that it’s not worth it to leak the story to the press. The world will laugh at me, but they will hate the Secret Service for shooting an innocent bird. But try to get this into their concrete heads…yes, it’s me again. No, don’t hang up now, idiot!”  
He continued to shout and pace some more.

“I say we should leak it if it means we could get rid of Rumlow”, the personal aide to the president threw in. 

Steve agreed, though only on the inside. How Natasha had gotten away from the President’s side he did not want to know.  
“This must not leak”, he answered. “At least not before the ceremony. Afterwards…well, I guess too many people already know.”

“Good news”, Clint suddenly announced. “She’s not bleeding anymore. Bad news is that I don’t know where the bullet is, in her body or in the lawn behind the Oval Office. And the bandage might be a bit…visible.”

“A bit?”, Thor asked. As if on purpose Mercy spread her useless wings, and flapped them around, showing the lily white bandage on her right side.

Tony took a break from shouting into the phone. “She can’t go out like this!”, he said with growing panic. “I’m so fucked, so very, very fuck…yes, still here. Listen…”

Steve sighed, and took a few steps back until he hit the door. A plan was forming in his head.   
It was madness, but desperate situations and all that.

“The journalists won’t be closer than this, right?”

“No, they’ll be further back”, Clint answered. “At least another ten steps.”

“And no one is actually going to touch her, right?”

“There’s the guy who has to bring her on stage, but other than that, no”, Clint explained. As the deputy communication director’s assistant he received a lot of grunt work. Carrying birds that Tony did not want to touch was one of them.

“So if we sat her down with her left side to the journalists…", Steve mused, "and I mean, Pepper will not touch her with a ten foot pole.” He thought for a moment, then whirled around. “Be back in a second…”

He fetched his crayons from his desk, and ran back to Pepper’s office. There seemed to be more people around, and he feared that the secret service might have lifted the ban.  
He needed three minutes to color a patch of bandage, and wrap it over the first layer on Mercy, while Thor stood watch at the door.

“Betty’s back”, he hissed. “And there’s Darcy.”

“Hurry up!”, Tony urged.

“Don’t rush us!”, Bruce growled, while he tried to get the bandage around her wing.

Steve just barely managed to slip his crayons into his pockets, and Bruce to turn Mercy with her good side to the door, and Natasha to snatch the towel and hide it behind her back, before Pepper stormed in, and shrieked.

“What? Tony!”, she yelled.

“Surprise!”, Tony grinned. Steve flushed a deep red, and picked up Grace to hide behind her. Even the birds were better at lying than he was.

“You know I don’t like these birds!”, Pepper shrieked. “Take it off! Take it off!”

“Come on, isn’t she a beauty?”, Tony asked, and carefully lifted Mercy off the desk.

“It’s worse enough that I had to choose the more beautiful of the two. Get them to their cage!”

“What is going on?”, Jane suddenly asked in their backs. “Thor, where’s the draft that I asked you for?”

Thor blushed, and squirmed under Jane’s furious gaze. “Uh…have you met Grace?”

He picked her from Steve’s hands, and pointed her at Jane.

She glared first at Grace, then at Thor. “A turkey. How marvelous. Now get your sorry ass to your desk before I drag it there myself!”

He flashed her one of his brightest smiles, and disappeared, with Grace still in his arms. Natasha used him as hiding spot to sneak out unseen, and hurried away with the towel.

“Will we ever have a year when you won’t go crazy over the damn turkeys?”, Peggy piped up behind Jane. This had been aimed at Steve, and he felt his blush come back with a vengeance.

It was Pepper who saved him. “Forget the turkeys, get back to work! If everyone dropped their work like you at every false alarm, we wouldn’t get one bill passed in ten years.”

The women did not see the glances between the assistants, but immediately Tony was as chipper as ever again, and shoved Bruce, Clint, and Steve past Jane and Peggy.  
“You are right, Virginia. Guys, why aren’t you working? Seriously, I am so ashamed.”

Clint kicked him in the shin, and went back to his desk. 

Jane glared at the turkey for a moment longer, then stomped back to the sanctity of her office.  
“Thor, if I find even one mistake in that speech...!”

Peggy was still looking at Steve. Pepper had closed the door, and they were blocking the hallway.   
“You know what I am most thankful for this year?”  
“Your beloved assistant who makes your job as Deputy Chief of Staff so much easier?”, he tried. The pencils were pricking his stomach.  
She laughed all the way back to her office.

Steve, Bruce, Tony, and Thor later watched the ceremony on the television in their cubicle farm. Clint could be seen carrying Mercy, and even Natasha was in the picture for a few seconds, when she opened the door to the terrace for the President and the First Lady.  
Bruce was kneading his stress ball the entire time, but Mercy kept still, and President Fury pardoned her without incident.  
To Steve’s surprise he even managed a smile for the cameras, right at the end, and it made for some very nice pictures in the newspapers.

Mercy died six months later, and Grace followed her before a year had passed, as fattened turkeys with clogged arteries and strained joints are wont to do.   
At least they had a nice home for the rest of their lives, and Mercy did not seem to have suffered long-term damage from the shooting. Though of course there was no way to tell PTSD in a turkey.

Rumlow exploded five days before Christmas, and Natasha won the entire betting pool. It was three days later than Steve had anticipated, and he was a bit vexed.

But all in all it had been a successful Thanksgiving in the West Wing.


End file.
